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Here's the new adaptation of my previous attempt at a wargame. This new title is much improved (in my opinion). Here are the contents of the first two pages I have written (I don't want to give away any rules until i get through around ten sets of playtests and balance out the rules) I am looking for people to help by submitting ideas for in game units (PM me, I'll post approved concepts here with a sketch and perhaps some stats)

http://www.filedropper.com/legendsofkorrendryl

Legends of Korrendryl
Getting Started:
In order to play the game you will need:
A painted assortment of miniatures representative of your battle group
This rulebook or a quick-reference sheet
Stat-sheets for each unit type in your battle group
Strategy and Mana markers (small coins or colored beads work great)
A measuring device (preferably a tape-measure)
A fistful of dice (you may end up needing quite a few)
An imagination or two (a sense of adventure doesn’t hurt, either)
An opponent who also has these things
A play area (a 4’X4’ tabletop with terrain is ideal)

Overview:
Legends of Korrendryl is a turn-based, tabletop, strategy game. Each player builds a battle group whose value corresponds to a preset point limit. Each battle group is led by a battle-master who can distribute Strategy points across friendly forces. Strategy points can be used to grant units additional abilities, such as an additional attack, or farther movement than normal. A battle group may also contain one or more casters who can distribute Mana points, which allow units to cast spells. Each unit in a battle force has unique stats and abilities to help it achieve victory.

Backstory:
The continent of Korrendryl is a once peaceful conglomerate of regional provinces, torn asunder by a rapid industrial/ magical revolution. The Province of Gorrenden is home to the largest, thickest forests imaginable as well as wildlife diversity that seems purely fantastical. The people of the region specialize as expert wilderness trackers, rangers and druids. The Province of Sorrendas is frozen tundra, dotted with snow-capped mountains. The people of the region utilize both technology and the environment to its fullest, building towering electricity-generating windmills. Sorrens wholeheartedly support their military and technological might, most are trained riflemen, but their greatest weapon by far is their land’s hostile environment. Sollendas is a land of smoke and ash; craters blemish the entire land while war factories belch pollutant gasses. The people of Sollendas are purely hostile; they slaughter without mercy and want nothing but absolute control of Korrendryl. The Province of Warrendas is a land surrounded in as much mystery as it is sand. Natives to Warrendas worship mysterious gods and practice the most arcane forms of magic. Marrendryl is a large island nation covered in swamps, jungles, beaches and small tribal villages. Marrens are typical sky-going piratical people, they utilize nature, technology and magic equally, plundering airships and villages regularly.



C&C is, as always, appreciated.

Here are some hints from me and my "production team":
The new system allows players to build their lists utilizing units from any of the games 5 current factions.
Gameplay lends heavily on WarmaHordes and (hopefully) card games like Magic and Yugioh.
The game is stylized after the Jak and Daxter series with hints of scifi, modern, tribal, 'steampunk' and ancient-looking elements.
If anyone wants to ask any questions about the new title, PM me, I'll probably answer any question you may have. Also, If anyone would continue forward with Project Ares, I'd be spiritually indebted to you, PM me and I'll give you the run-down on that situation.

Thanks for everyone's support thus far, I've learned much about the game-developing process and am always looking for help on every level as I move forward toward the misty shores of Korrendryl and beyond!

Would it help if I posted an in-progress rulebook? I will do so as long a I can count on some honest, productive feedback. What do you guys think?

Rulebooks definitely help since there isn't much to comment on otherwise

For the map you could consider using one of the many free tools online. I prefer Hexographer for smaller scale maps but I know you can make epic world sized maps too fairly easily.

Steampunk sounds interesting, especially since you're also combining elements of magic (at least that's what it sounds like with druids), sort of like the old CRPG Arcanum.

I'm not a huge fan of the Warhammer or Warmachine approach to rules, but I'd still be interested to see what you've come up with.

Welp, Here goes nothing:
http://www.filedropper.com/legendsofkorrendryl
The rules and story are still in a rudimentary state (I have many plans which haven't made it onto this document).
The unit stat-sheets are only a few of the (at least) 50 units I hope to include in the final release.
Play testing will begin within a few months after the book is 'finished' by me and proofread by a group of others. I'll post battle reports and sample videos once play testing begins.
I'll be posting some older concept sketches before the night is through.


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Some old concept sketches:

I hope you enjoy the pics, sorry for the quality my scanner is on the fritz.

I'll be having a 30 point test game in about 15 minutes, stay tuned for the results. I will be fielding Sykarus the war weaver, a unit of Mountaineer rifles and a Moutaineer Regimenteer.

EDIT: Sorry, game had to be postponed...

I'll be interested to see how the game plays. The Filedropper link looks dead now (just redirects to the main page without any download for me).

Alright, the file-dropper link is fixed. I'm surprised it took so long to realize it was broken...

The link worked back when you first posted it and broke later. Originally I just opened the document and gave it a quick look instead of saving it and doing a thorough reading later.

Anyway now that it's back up I'll try to do a deeper read through and post some comments, since feedback on a persons custom game is always nice to get!

Did you get a chance to make your battle report yet?

bosky wrote:
Did you get a chance to make your battle report yet?

Unfortunately, no. I will try to try running through a game playing as both sides soon, my next chance for a real game will be next Friday.

Alrighty:

By making any force able to recruit any unit you remove a lot of the fun people have comparing armies and strengths. I guess the idea was to have any army be able to face any foe though? What kind of bonuses were you looking at putting in for a cohesive force with the same affiliation? What about splitting the armies along stricter lines and then having some unaligned "beast" units to add variety?

Forcing units to be within 2" of the leader is rather...close? Was this value chosen just because 40k uses it? The way the rules read made it seem like everyone needs to be within 2" of the leader to avoid taking command tests, so you'll probably end up with a lot of circle formations with the leader in the middle.

Interesting idea with the Immunity stat for each unit. Is there a chance a fight might come down to a 1 unit vs 1 unit and one of those units can't even hurt the other ones? Or is there enough weapon versatility in a unit to avoid that?

For the Preparation Phase what about having a failed COM test have different effects instead of just "move to table edge"? What about running away from the nearest enemy, or cowering in fear and being unable to act, or maybe going berserk, or something like that?

So 1 Strategy Point can be given to a unit to increase some of their stats? How do you plan on tracking this? Marking on the unit's sheet or beside the unit or what? Might be confusing where a player goes "I think I increased DEF for this guy...or was it ARM?" I like the idea of dynamically improving units on the table, I think it will just depend on how it's implemented at game time.

Not sure if I dig the idea of having to spend a Strategy Point to make a unit Run. It seems like that should be a standard action, or if not perhaps similar neat boosts can be given to attacks? I think it's tough because Strategy Points kind of blur the line between "improving stats" and "doing neat things on the field".

Doing melee locking where a person can't shoot in close combat eh? I'm not a fan, but if you want to follow the 40k/Warmachine model I guess it makes sense. Same with not shooting into combat. I think this causes too much focus on either a ranged or melee force since a unit has to be very specialized to do well when they can't intrude on other types of fighting. Although it looks like only some melee weapons lock? Kind of confusing with how the rules read.

Can a unit move and then shoot, or shoot and then move, or does it have to be in a set order?

I like the approach of D6+RAS > DEF = hit, it reminds me of the D20 system which is nice and simple. Continuing the idea with D6+POW > ARM = dead is great, consistent, and simple. Would you consider doing something cool on a roll of 6, like a critical hit? It sort of follows the D20 idea, and it's always fun for players to get rewarded for high rolls. Maybe a +1 to the POW roll?

Good idea carrying the rolling mechanics over to melee, although I wonder if D6+POW+STR could be replaced with just D6+STR? I guess you want to split between a strong monster and a powerful weapon though. I've just never personally been a fan of 40k's approach of having a physical attribute for Strength and having it just affect melee. Instead couldn't a strong monster have their STR factored into the POW of their weapon (even if their weapon is something natural like Claws) so then you don't have to do double addition? Especially since you don't have a standard weapon list so this wouldn't be a big deal. For a specific example why not make the Sand Swimmer's "Lash Tail" attack have a POW of 6, which is just the current POW 4 + STR 2?

I've always been a fan of having objectives provide a bonus, since otherwise players might not go for them until the very last turn when it becomes a "rush go go go for objectives!". What about giving +1 Strategy Point per objective per turn that it's held?

Would you consider adding range brackets instead of just a flat range? For example 10" for the Mountaineer Rifle is rather short?

Looks like there is a lot of book keeping around the special abilities. Just two units in but already the Sand Swimmer can do DEF + 4 and the Mountaineers can do ARM + 4 and DEF + 4. Do you intend on having a big "temporary bonus" slot on the unit sheet to write these down, or have a variety of tokens, or what?

Is the spending of Strategy Points limited on a per unit basis at all? Otherwise why not just have a Battlemaster who uses all his Strategy Points (for example Sykarus the Warweaver with 10 SP) to increase their DEF by +10 and become invincible to almost anything? Or at least force the enemy to spend their SP to raise one units RAS to be able to hit the Battlemaster while the rest of their army does nothing? Or can a unit only spend their Strategy Points on themselves?

Similarly couldn't the Mountaineer Regimenteer caster spend it's 6 Mana to use Entrenchment 6 times to give itself +24 ARM? Ouch.

Rate of Fire is the number of shots right? So Sykarus, with Dual Wielding, could attack with his Dual Pistols 2x for a total of ROF 4 x 2 = 8 attacks?

More book keeping, this time for the Sollendas Infantry Fireteam where you have to reduce their RAS for each 3" moved, so then you have to track their total movement and adjust their stat.

Anyways looks cool overall, I like the core dice mechanic, and the idea of Strategy Points seems neat. I think a solid re-read for editing errors and general clarity would help, since as it stands I think there is the ability to "break" a lot of mechanics.

Looking forward to the battle report! What figures are you aiming to use when you run the test game?

Wow, really impressed by that response. First off, thanks. I didn't have any problems with most of that, I just want to clarify some things:

bosky wrote:

So 1 Strategy Point can be given to a unit to increase some of their stats? How do you plan on tracking this? Marking on the unit's sheet or beside the unit or what? Might be confusing where a player goes "I think I increased DEF for this guy...or was it ARM?" I like the idea of dynamically improving units on the table, I think it will just depend on how it's implemented at game time.

I planned for the stat-sheets to be stored in clear plastic covers, perhaps in a binder. players would mark changes with dry-erase markers

Doing melee locking where a person can't shoot in close combat eh? I'm not a fan, but if you want to follow the 40k/Warmachine model I guess it makes sense. Same with not shooting into combat. I think this causes too much focus on either a ranged or melee force since a unit has to be very specialized to do well when they can't intrude on other types of fighting. Although it looks like only some melee weapons lock? Kind of confusing with how the rules read.

Only some weapons may lock their opponent.

Similarly couldn't the Mountaineer Regimenteer caster spend it's 6 Mana to use Entrenchment 6 times to give itself +24 ARM? Ouch.

Yeah, this is the first time I realized I never restricted how a unit may use its spells... I'm probably going to say that a unit may use one spell per turn, just to prevent magic spamming.

Rate of Fire is the number of shots right? So Sykarus, with Dual Wielding, could attack with his Dual Pistols 2x for a total of ROF 4 x 2 = 8 attacks?

Rate of Fire describes the maximum amount of shots, each unit is allowed one attack which may be boosted by 1 for each strategy point spent, RoF is a cap disallowing units to make more than a certain number of ranged attacks.

Otherwise, Great suggestions.

I like to give detailed responses to home brewed rules where possible, since I know what the process can be like without feedback.

Squidmanlolz wrote:I planned for the stat-sheets to be stored in clear plastic covers, perhaps in a binder. players would mark changes with dry-erase markers

That's a good idea and would certainly get around the issue of having a mass of counters on the sheet or beside the figure. Do you plan to have a standardized Mordheim / Necromunda style roster with multiple stat blocks on it, or are you just going to leave it up to each player to format their own?

Squidmanlolz wrote:Only some weapons may lock their opponent.

Ah that's good making it a special ability instead of a global rule. I think I'm biased because I've had so many frustrating situations in 40k where a strong melee unit will lock a strong melee unit and they both awkwardly fail to damage each other for 4 turns.

Squidmanlolz wrote:Yeah, this is the first time I realized I never restricted how a unit may use its spells... I'm probably going to say that a unit may use one spell per turn, just to prevent magic spamming.

That seems like a good solution. A method that might require a bit more memory or tracking would be saying they can only cast each spell once, so the Mountaineer Rifles could cast Entrenchment and Concealment, but neither more than once. Either that or raise the cost of spells so they only have enough Mana to cast one or the other, since that doesn't require an exception rule.

Squidmanlolz wrote:Rate of Fire describes the maximum amount of shots, each unit is allowed one attack which may be boosted by 1 for each strategy point spent, RoF is a cap disallowing units to make more than a certain number of ranged attacks.

That makes more sense. What about putting a similar cap on the rest of their stats, to avoid the "RAS +10" case I was talking about before.

Since I'm only one man for all intents and purposes and cannot further divide myself (already split between school, work, this project and a ruddy internship I'm required to complete over the summer) I have decided to use my available time wisely. My days will be divided between "rules days" and "fluff days" these will alternate either daily or weekly. Hopefully this scheduling will allow me to complete the task of an army until I find someone to takeover one of these rolls.

God speed, Korrens!

I am currently working on fluff to establish and emphasize a feud which I have been planning for a long time, the wars between Sorrendas and Sollendas. A battle is rolling through a Sollen city as a mob of Sorrens take aim at everything in sight. The story of this battle will be told through the eyes of two Sollen regulars, one of whom becomes the last man standing when his home is overrun.
Here are the beginnings of the short story, it's only really a setting, but it gives you a decent idea of what life in Sollendas is like:
P.S. Ears are very important to Korrens for some reason.

Huzzah!
Friends, Korrens, lend me you ears!
I will (probably) get a chance to demo this game to my maths class on Friday. It's a probability and logic based class where for our final exam each student must develop some type of game. Blah-Blah-Blah... we are trying out mainstream games to begin brewing ideas on Friday, I figure a test run of Korrendryl will do nicely to introduce many of my classmates to the world of table-top gaming.

[Rulebook updated, download link in OP]

Yeah it can be tough to balance time spent creating fluff with the core mechanics. I tend to work out the mechanics first but that's because I like that part more than fleshing out the setting.

Great to hear you might get to demo the game, let us all know how it goes.

Also what was changed in the rulebook in the most recent download update? Do you keep a "change log" of sorts at all?

The biggest change was the addition of a "COM effect table" which randomizes units' effects when they fail COM tests.

I printed up a copy of the rules as they stand right now; Wowza! it's a lot bigger than I thought it would be at this point, it's the size of a small-medium sized magazine and I only have about 1/5 of the planned units and no real fluff in there so far. It would appear that I am well on my way to filling a book.

P.S. The next update will include rules for all 50 units in the first edition (expansions will introduce new stuff, but don't hold your breath... it'll be a while) as well as rules for Cover and Concealment terrain. I'll post a list of updates shortly.

Nice, it's always fun to see the heft of your rulebook in printed form. Are you going to eventually split the army list out of the main rulebook? I think having the core rules separate might help.

Did the demo game end up happening?

Alright folks, since it seems there will be some downtime between now and another rendition of the rules I'm thinking that I'll start to get a bit closer to my fan base (If there are any of you out there) while drawing in new fans, friends, resources, etc. So, wherever you find yourself, please just comment here with questions, stories, quips, comments, critiques (hell, I could take an insult of two). So, here's where things get personal.

bosky wrote:Did the demo game end up happening?

It was short, to keep things simple we used 20 point lists which is essentially a Battle-Master and one other unit. It was a bit difficult to teach someone (not used to table-top gaming) to play after only one turn, since it is uncommon to use most rules in one turn, let alone turn one in such a tiny game. Nevertheless, things went quite well, everything was well balanced, etc. There was some disappointment at a lack of a cover system (I am designing this now, I want it to do more than modify some stats, I want it to really interact with the units without making it seem too desirable.)

P.S.
Here's the list of units that will make it into the first version of the game, plenty more are eagerly awaiting their place in one of many expansions which are brewing well before their time.

50 units=A lot of writing left undone for now.

Ran another test game today, this time 30 points. It ended up being Sollendas VS Sorrendas. Again, everything seemed quite fair and balanced. Sykarus the Warweaver is awesome, the vast militaries of Sorrendas are greater!

I've gotten in three more test matches. Found balance issues with the Marren units. It would seem that I put too much effort into making the Marrens fair, and overdid it. It should take a quick fix on those 4 or 5 units then I can keep knocking out new units until they're done by Thursday (hopefully).

The entire Marrendryl faction has been completed!
Only 28 more units to write up!

EDIT: Sorrenden is complete as well!

Huzzah! Nice to know this is doing so well!

This lookes really great! keep up the good work


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Also what will the minis be made from?

YELLOWBLADES wrote:
Also what will the minis be made from?

After the rules are done, I will begin looking for a printer and a modeller. I'm not sure if I need to do a full production or if I can just do short moulding runs with the models I commission. Either way, there will probably be a Kickstarter up when that happens. Personally, I like the feel of metal models, but resin is typically cheaper to produce and I think anyone who buys the game would prefer it.

You could try 3d printing? Its expensive to get into, but as long as you keep on top of finances, then it could work....

If anyone could give me the name of good printers and modellers, I'd be grateful. Price estimates would be fantastic.

I don't really understand much right now as it is.late but this certainly.looks interesting and.as.soon as I get some sleep I can have a proper study.

http://www.digitaldata-corp.com/ is the book printer that we use, as they are fairly local (saves on shipping). You should be able be able to find a printer in NJ, likely in Newark, by just googling "New Jersey Book Printing"